The Cricketers Arms Hotel

The Cricketers Arms — the 'Crix' to its regulars — has held its Surry Hills corner since 1876, and the place still carries the room-feel of its 1920s Art Deco rebuild: patterned tiling, wooden floors, a working fireplace. Downstairs runs like a traditional pub — a convivial bar, a beer garden out back, local taps and pub snacks. Upstairs is Chez Crix, a French-leaning bistro with natural wines, saucisson, chicken liver parfait and steak frites. Wednesday nights bring live jazz, which tends to pull a slightly dressier crowd through the door.

Dogs are welcome inside and out, including the upstairs bistro — a wider policy than most heritage pubs concede to. The Crix has a long reputation as one of Sydney's early gay-friendly pubs, and the shorthand that it feels 'like an extension of people's living rooms' still holds.